DVR Direct TV to Cable

Anonymous

Posted on Tuesday, June 29, 2004 - 23:45 GMT

I have a hughes DVR for Direct TV. However, to save money I am going to switch to Comcast. Will I be able to use the DVR for cable. Comcast has a DVR option, but I need to know if a DVR for Direct TV will still work. Thanks

anonymous2

Unregistered guest

Posted on Sunday, July 18, 2004 - 05:54 GMT

No, it won't work, however, you won't lose much money if you sell you DirTV DVR on Ebay and get a new one from Comcast as a new customer sign-up with Comcast (or the Comcast special for satellite customers going over to cable).

Anonymous

Posted on Wednesday, August 11, 2004 - 02:39 GMT

Comcast is offering the HDTV box w/DVR, however this is a one tuner DVR meaning if you are watching your box and recording you cant change the channel, Comcast is coming out with a 2 tuner DVR box in the near future. for the time being if you have a hdtv and a dvr box from comcast get a 2-way splitter (rated 5-1000mhz and split the signal BEFORE the box, run one leg to the input on your box and the other to the coax input on your tv. then run component cabeles from your box to your tv(lets say video 4). whenyou want to record put your tv on video 4 and start yor recording the switch over to channel 3 ON YOUR TV and use your tv remote to switch channels while you are recording. Iknow this is not a response to any comment here but i have seen this problem in the field and think it might help someone.

I am thinking of dumping DirecTV and my Tivo to take advantage of the Comcast $400 buy back. I am going to get a 2 tuner HDTV DVR from them here in the Boston area for only $10/month (versus $1000 for Directv HD DVR) Problem is, I heard the signal with Comcast is not good on all non HD Channels like DirecTV. I am hooking up to a 60" LCD. The circuit city guy said they are going to all digital channels effective Jan. 1-does anyone know if this is true and will solve the problems of the crumby analog signal through Comcast on some channels I have heard of? Thanks! B

Anonymous

Posted on Tuesday, December 21, 2004 - 02:06 GMT

Just a warning, the Comcast DVR interface is terrible. I have a Tivo unit already and added the Comcast HD-DVR when it became available (single tuner only, but the dual is apparently coming). It works great for recording HD content, the difference between live/playback is really undetectable. However the interface of the box compared to Tivo is ridiculous. It is clunky and slow, not graphically designed in any way. Say goodbye to Season Pass and excellent FF and rew (the response time is completely different and the highest speed is equal to 2nd FF on Tivo). Also there is no progress bar so you have no idea how far you are into the program (this is a problem in both recorded and paused live TV). The graphical layout of menus is just terrible (think the old TV Guide style program guide.) Until Tivo comes out with a Stand Alone HD model, its really the only alternative for Comcast cable customers. But if you already have HD from DirecTV DO NOT SWITCH. PS. I recently used a MOXIE box from Adelphia, it is terrific and has all the great features of an HD Tivo, including dual tuner, and the interface is terrific. It may even be better than Tivo. If your cable company offers it I can highly recommend it (although I only used it briefly).

I would have gladly dropped 1k for a box that could do this (e.g. new sony Over the air box coming out), however Comcast apparently only adds 10 to 15 dollars a month

Looks like Comcast is going flat-out and loss leading with this to grab SAT customers - because I would be adding VOOM for sure otherwise ,and you cannot hi def record on that currently

pretty good deal i think

Anonymous

Posted on Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - 02:22 GMT

I have owned TIVO (Best), Replay (Good), and now own dual tuner Comcast DVR (SUCKS). Clunky interface, TERRIBLE fast forward/rewind, i.e. to go to the first of the movie, you slew at a fast walk to the end or beginning. Ugh! Sucks Sucks Sucks. HDTV works fine, dual tuner interface is confusing and ambigious. Cannot control the TV and the Box power without interference. Sucks Sucks Sucks, my wife is hopelessly lost. TIVO is best interface, period. Only reason I don't return to Direct TV is because of the free analog channels for the bedrooms etc. But I am rethinking it big time.

What you don't realize is there are two different version of the Comcast DVR. It sounds like you have the CRAPPY one, forget who makes the OS on it, but you're right it sucks. Too bad for you!

For most people, the Comcast DVR (motorola 6412 dual tuner) comes with a DVR interface that is pretty much copied from Tivo. It is very very similar, but not quite as good. But, since it does HD and it's only $10/month, it wins over the DirecTv HD Tivo any day. There are a few things that are buggy and don't work as good as Tivo, but for the most part, it's pretty much the same interface. It's about as close as they could probably make it to Tivo without getting into legal trouble. My wife has no problems using it! But, we both agree that Tivo is still the king of the easy interface.

I just switched from DirecTv Series1 hacked Tivo to Comcast. There are certain things I miss about the Tivo (mostly because of my hacking), but overall I'm completely thrilled and very very happy with the switch. Having the HD DVR is so awesome!!! I sure hope someone comes up with a way to plug a firewire hard drive into the comcast dvr to increase storage (yes, it has firewire ports)....although I think comcast will have to implement that hack. If you have a DVHS with firewire, you're supposed to be able to record directly off the comcast dvr through the firewire. I've also read articles about plugging a mac into the firewire and recording onto the mac. I have a mac, but haven't tried that yet. I did however try plugging a firewire hard drive into it...nothing happened.

Without a doubt Comcast is by far the best choice for HD and an HD DVR. It's dramatically cheaper, they'll give you a huge incentive to swtich ($20/month discount for 1 year), local channels in HD, no expensive hardware to purchase, good HD selection (local, ESPN, Discovery, INHD, INHD2, plus all the premium movie channels in HD). Plus, Comcast has TONS of ON DEMAND content that is pretty awesome, and some of it is in HD. Oh, and I get a $10 discount on my cable internet! WIN, WIN, WIN!!!

I'll be a content Comcast HD customer for the next year. By then hopefully DirecTV will be competitive again and I'll consider switching.

FYI...DirecTV will be switching to MPEG4 encoding for their HD channels very soon, probably this year. So, anyone buying their $1000 HD DVR that only decodes MPEG2 will be SOL when this transition occurs. You can only hope that they'll offer a free replacement DVR, but you never know. I'll bet they'll force you into a 1 or 2 year contract for the exchange! Personally I would not shell out any money on a DirecTV DVR until the transition is complete and the new DVR's come out.

oh, I forgot to mention another huge plus with comcast, atleast it was for me. You do not need a phone line with comcast, it's all done through the hd dvr...it basically has a cable modem built into it. That saves me $50/month!!! I completely canceled my Qwest phone line, it's dead! I now have Vonage VoIP which works over your broadband internet and you still use your normal home phones with it. I only pay $24.95 month for Vonage and 100% of my long distance is free, unlimited! It's awesome!!

Anonymous

Posted on Thursday, March 24, 2005 - 22:59 GMT

I left Comcast because of service quality and pricing after the promo ended. I went RCN and they have the dual tuner dvd which works great and it also comes with HD.

Is the RCN Dual tuner the same Motorola model that Comcast uses? Does it have the same klunky user interface? That is what I miss most about my DirecTV Tivo....

Anonymous

Posted on Thursday, March 24, 2005 - 23:47 GMT

There is no substitute for Tivo. Remember Tivo is all about programmingand now that Comcast purchased them who knows. RCN uses the Motorola box and the TV Guide programming. I finf it easy to use, but then again I don't do much future recording like out a week.

Anonymous

Posted on Wednesday, April 06, 2005 - 19:28 GMT

As far as I know, Comcast did not purchase TiVo. Instead they partnered up so that TiVo will create the software for future Comcast DVR's.

Had Comcast purchased TiVo, DirectTV owners would have a lot to worry about regarding where they will get their DVR service.

You are right that nothing can replace TiVo. It has several unique features that the Comcast DVR does not, such as TiVoToGo and TiVo Desktop for Pictures and Music. However, the programming that you speak of from TiVo has been poor as of late when used in tandem with Comcast digital cable. For example, most every episode of the Daily Show now bears the description "A Humorous Slant on Top News Stories". Yes, I memorized it. I've seen it so much.

This reduction in the quality of TiVo's programming information could be related to the roll-out of their DVR service. However, no matter what it results from, in the end I want a better service than that.

Paying less per month is also quite nice.

Mr. P

Unregistered guest

Posted on Thursday, April 07, 2005 - 14:40 GMT

This might be a dumb question, but I am about to turn off my Direct Tv service for financial reasons and was wondering if there is any way to use TiVo with the 4 or 5 channels i'd get with an antenna? I know the schedule would be gone, but could it be manipulated to just act like a VCR? Thanks

Mr. M

Unregistered guest

Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 - 04:57 GMT

Not a dumb question at all, Mr. P. I'd like to know the answer to that. Is it possible to somehow "hack" the Hughes HDVR2 machine I have so that I can use it as a DVR since I switched from Directv back to Time Warner cable? I would like to be able to record TV shows on it still without using the built in software that requires info from Directv satellite in order to work.

Time Warner uses an Atlantic Scientific 8300 HD DVR box. It's the worst and glitchiest piece of electronics and service I have ever experienced. Nobody knows anything. If you like this type of "service" go for it. I plan to go back to DirectTV and hope they increase their HD service soon!

I have recently purchased a Direct TV HD Receiver w/Tivo. I set it up, everything was working. Then the next night the receiver was not getting a singal from the dish, and the screen went black. I exchanged it for another unit. This new unit the AV lines were not functioning. I replaced that unit, and now the HD Line, and AV lines are not working. What kinkd of junk are they selling. Are there issues w/ this new reciever.

The boy from utah.

Unregistered guest

Posted on Saturday, June 11, 2005 - 00:59 GMT

I have the dual tuner dvr and it rocks. Yesterday it stop working right so we called the tech and haved it replaced and it eorks great now. People, save the monwy switch to comcast.Oh, and also Brian Snyder could you in a deeper explanation what exactly you did.

The boy from utah.

Unregistered guest

Posted on Saturday, June 11, 2005 - 01:11 GMT

Sorry the top was wrong meant to say Brian Lampart

The boy from utah.

Unregistered guest

Posted on Saturday, June 11, 2005 - 01:11 GMT

Sorry the top was wrong meant to say Brian Lampart

Anonymous

Posted on Monday, June 13, 2005 - 21:51 GMT

Received an offer from Directv to sign up for their DIRECTV DVR with TiVo. This would cost $99.00 plus shipping and a monthly fee of $9.98. This sounded OK until I learned that in order to use this with my new living room HD TV I would have to disconnect my present HD receiver to have the DVR with TiVo installed. This would effectively end my HD reception. They did tell me that there ia a HD DIRECTV DVR with TiVo available for $700.00. Has anyone found any value in installing a DVR with TiVo in a room other than the one that is used 99% of the time for TV viewing? Any advantage over leaving just a regular VCR attached as we do now. I'm a 70 year old guy - not too savvy on DVRs with TiVo - as you probably guessed. Thank you. John

I'm moving and will be changing my service from DISH to TimeWarner. I currently have a DISH Pro DVR with 100 GB HDD, which works great btw, and I'd like see if I can use it with my new Time Warner cable in San Antonio. They (TWC) gave me a Scientific Atlanta DVR with 40 GB HDD (but apparently charge $5 monthly for use). I'd like to use my existing DISH DVR Pro on another cable outlet to add the 100 hours of recording, if that's possible.

You cannot use the proprietary sattelite DVR's for recording "other" sources such as cable. Only a stand-along Tivo/ReplayTV can do that. Unfortunatly they cost about $12/month for their service. Your best choice for the money is the DVR your local cable company offers. You can sell your dish dvr on ebay to get a little money out of it.

Another option is using a PC to record TV...there are many ways to do this. The only problem is it only works on analog cable channels because you need a cable box to decode the other channels. You can grab HD over the air for free and record it to a PC if you live close enough to a major city and can receive the broadcast through an antenna.

Anonymous

Posted on Wednesday, September 07, 2005 - 00:04 GMT

Has anyone heard of the new direct tv card reader or does anyone know of a descramber i could buy?

Hi, Can anyone tell me if I can use my direct tv without a box so I can save a little on the monthly fees per box? I have 5 tvs and hate spending the extra 25.00 per month. And do you have to pay for boxes for Comcast per month or can you still just hook them up yourselves to each room? I have regular Tv's no Hdtv or anything. Thanks, Mary

FOR those who want to DUMP DIRECT TV and go with TIME Warner or COMCAST, in my humble opinion you are making a mistake, FIRST the DVR for TW/COMCAST is LAME compared to TIVO, TIVO is the bomb. It is hard to WORK, configure and set up recording. Also cable has had more service interuption than I ever had with DIRECT TV. YOU ONLY PAY FOR QUALITY and that is what you get with DIRECT TV TIVO. I switched back in JUN 05 and after 6 months of being very DISPLEASED with TW I am going to move back to DIRECT TV TIVO.

my "friend" has basic cable from comcast $9 per month, channels 2-23. in order for comcast to block the rest of the channels coming into your home they need to put a filter inline blocking channels 23-79 and the few scattered ones in the 80's and 90's. not including pay channels. He removed the filter from the digital interface on the side of his house and now recieves pretty decent cable for $9 instead of $40. filter is supposed to be installed inline at the pole but most techs from comcast put the filter right on the interface on the side of your house. Now he gets an hd box from comcast and they filter the channels he was getting for free through the box. should he just put in an a/b switch to watch the other channels or bite the bullet and pay comcast for a cable upgrade

Just purchased a 6070 Pioneer Plasma. From what I am reading it appears that the best way to record TV programs with the higest clarity is Tivo (as opposed to the regular DVD recording devices sold in stores). I want the very best recording quality. I appreciate any and all advice.

I have two Tivo boxes: the first one I used it for 2 month. Then, we bought a HD tv and the person from direct tv told me I had to pay about $600.00 for the Tivo HD. Finally, he agreed for $250.00, but I was paying to much for the service, so I switched to Comcast and I have the Tivo boxes new in my house without use. For me it was a good choice because I saved, even when I paid penalties for ending my two years agreement. Comcast is more cheaper than Direct TV, good service, No payment from any cable box and no contract.